Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach

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Dungeons & Dragons Online
Developer(s) Turbine, Inc.
Publisher(s) Atari
Release date(s) February 28, 2006
Genre(s) MMORPG
Mode(s) Multiplayer
Platform(s) PC

Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach (abbreviated as "DDO") is an MMORPG developed by Turbine, Inc. Turbine has developed DDO as an online adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D). DDO is based on the D&D 3.5 Ruleset and set in the Eberron campaign setting. Wizards of the Coast, the current publisher of the Dungeons and Dragons pen and paper game, worked with Turbine during the game's approximately two years of development. DDO was released on February 28, 2006. It is published by Atari.

Contents

[edit] Game

DDO is set on the fictional continent of Xen’drik, in the world of Eberron. Eberron is a campaign world, developed by Keith Baker for Wizards of the Coast. Players can create their characters following the revised edition of D&D 3.5 rule-set fashion, and play them in both indoor and outdoor environments, including a large variety of dungeons.

Although the game is based in large part on the D&D 3.5 rule-set, it contains numerous minor changes from the tabletop game, most of which were introduced due to differences in the dynamics between the mediums of computer game combat and tabletop gaming. For example, Turbine wanted DDO to use a real time combat engine, where tabletop D&D uses a turn-based system. This brought about a number of changes in combat and character skills and feats to handle situations where Turbine felt the turn-based combat system and real-time combat did not mesh well. There are a good number of other differences between DDO and D&D, most of which have been listed on the DDO Wiki.[1]

The core of the game is set in the city of Stormreach, a giant-scaled city built eons ago, and recently settled by humans. There are a number of areas within Stormreach - the Docks, the Harbor, the Marketplace and the four Dragonmarked Houses - House Deneith, House Jorasco, House Kundarak and House Phiarlan. In addition, there are a number of adventures that take you beyond the city walls, into distant lands such as Tangleroot Gorge, Threnal, Three Barrel Cove and Sorrowdusk Isle, each home to one or more adventures of their own.

Generally, the plot of the game revolves around the following dark plots:

  • Giants attempting to regain mastery over the city of Stormreach and the continent of Xen'drik
  • Cultists attempting to reopen the gate to Xoriat
  • Minions of Khyber, attempting to gain power over Xen'drik

[edit] Mechanics

Standard parties can be up to 6 players, and Raid parties are up to twelve. Unlike most MMORPGs, players gain experience by completing quests. Killing monsters will usually increase the size of the experience reward, but are not always central to the reward. In some cases, simply running through a dungeon from one end to the other will grant an XP reward.

Typical groups consist of four core character types: a "tank" (fighters, paladins or barbarians), a healer (clerics or bards), a caster (wizards or sorcerers), and support classes (rogues or rangers). A character is not fixed to one class - they can start out as a ranger, for example, and then level up as a rogue at their next level. No one can have more than three classes.

There are currently 14 DDO servers for the US market, named after various geographic aspects of Eberron. For the European market there are 5 servers, named after Eberron deities. Characters are not transferable from server to server. In the US, Turbine themselves deploy the game and maintain the day-to-day operations. In Europe this has been outsourced to Codemasters with the help of Alchemic Dream. In China, the game is operated by Shanda. It is currently in closed beta stages, with 3 servers, named after the dragons Eberron, Khyber, and Siberys.

There are currently no servers for the Oceania market. The game distributed in Australia by Atari is the US version. Players in this region will get a ping of ~300msec to the US servers. Weekly downtimes take place during the PM hours (7pm to 12pm GMT+8) in Oceania, often on Friday nights.

[edit] Quests

The quests in DDO are organized by character level, difficulty and length. Each quest has a base level, and the XP reward increases if all of the party members are below that level, and decreases if any of the party members are above that level. Characters more than three levels below the "base level" are not allowed to initiate a quest, however they are able to join a quest started by another party member.

Note that most quests have an item or monetary reward when finished, but the character must have talked to the quest giver to receive the reward. Some dungeons require several visits to the quest giver to complete the entire quest chain. Speaking to the quest giver also generally allows you to repeat the quest.

The quests are narrated by a "Dungeon Master" who gives additional details and information to the players about what they see and hear on their adventure. For the "Delera's Tomb" quest chain, the dungeon master duties are performed by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax.

[edit] Difficulty levels

Currently, there are four difficulty levels for quests:

  • Solo
  • Normal
  • Hard
  • Elite

Hard and Elite increase the XP bonus the first time the quest is run at the given level, and generally provide a much more challenging experience to the players. As a bonus, the quality of the "loot" (items, equipment, etc) in the chests in hard and elite is better. Generally speaking, the highest level quests on the Elite setting offer the best loot, although that is not always the case.

On the other hand, Solo offers very little loot, and few, if any special items. Generally, the Solo difficulty section has been added recently to the game (June 2006) in order to make it more accessible to lower-level characters who do not have a group. There is a significant XP reduction for solo play, and only low (3nd and lower) level dungeons offer this capability, though Turbine has indicated that upcoming updates will expand the Solo difficulty level to dungeons as high as 6th level.

[edit] Features

The game includes built-in voice chat, integrated into the overall experience.

DDO is an instanced game, where each party receives a private "copy" of a dungeon for their own use.

There are localized versions for the European market . Languages available so far are English, French and German.

[edit] Characters

[edit] Races

Current player character races are:

The game does not feature a full complement of playable races from the Dungeons and Dragons world, and is missing core races (Gnome, Half-orc, half-elf), as well as the additional Eberron specific races of Kalashtar, Shifter and Changeling.

[edit] Classes

Currently there are nine (9) playable classes with no race restrictions. Following the 3.5 edition rules and the rules of the Eberron campaign, players choose a class to begin with but are not limited to remaining in that class. For example, a cleric may choose to gain a level in the rogue class, as well as any other class the player chooses; up to a maximum of twelve (12) total levels.

Current classes are:

Absent from this list are the standard classes, Druid and Monk, the psionic classes, Artificers (an Eberron exclusive class), and all prestige classes.

[edit] Alignments

Dungeons and Dragons Online does not feature the full spectrum of alignments available in Dungeons and Dragons, instead limiting itself to only good and neutral alignments. The ability to play evil aligned characters is unavailable.

The available alignments are:

[edit] Updates and modules

Turbine releases major content updates to the game as "modules", named after the module concept in the pen-and-paper version of D&D. Additional content is release between modules as "updates"

[edit] Module 1: Dragon's Vault

On April 5 2006 Turbine released its first module, "Dragon's Vault," which included a new dungeon; this new area included additional content and quests as well as the chance for players to battle a red dragon. Also included were a number of fixes to the combat system and minor tweaks to the user interface.

[edit] Update 1.1: The Harbor

This first update include changes to the low level Harbor quests.

[edit] Update 1.2: Solo Enhancements

More changes to the Harbor area, including the addition of several solo-only quests there.

[edit] Module 2: Twilight Forge

The "Twilight Forge" module, released July 12 2006, added a new player race: the Drow, as well as new enhancements, spells, a patron system, in-game mail, and adventures set in the Restless Isles, a new outdoor area.

[edit] Update 2.1: Litany of the Dead Part 1: The Necropolis

In August 2006, an update called "Litany of the Dead Part 1: The Necropolis" was released. This update is the first part of the Litany of the Dead series that will carry into next year. The update has five full quests as part of the first part of Litany, and culminates in an encounter with a powerful vampire. [1]

[edit] Update 2.2: Stormreach Under Siege!

This update for September 2006 introduced the first quests above level 10, other than the Twilight Forge raid, including a level 12 quest in the previously low-level only Harbor area.

[edit] Module 3: Demon Sands

The newest module by Turbine, the largest the game has yet seen, was released on October 25, 2006. With this update, Turbine attempted to alleviate many of the player bases' most acute concerns. Primarily, it introduced some more meaningfully explorable areas to the game in order to give the world a feeling of greater breadth. It also introduced some consensual PvP (Player vs. Player) elements to the game (in the form of "Tavern Brawl" arenas and objective-based quests; Capture the Flag, Indoor and Outdoor Deathmatch), as well as an auction house, and the first level-cap raise from ten to twelve.

[edit] Update 3.1: Evil Resurgent

This December 2006 update included a rework of the social panel, many bug fixes, and six high level quests. Most of these new quests, all of which are rated at level 11, are sequels to previous quests, extending the storylines of the characters involved.

[edit] Update 3.2: Litany of the Dead Part 2

Five new monsters (phase spiders, shadows, umbral worgs, umbral gargoyles, and invisible stalkers) were released in this update, along with five quests for party level 8-9. These quests continue the storyline of The Necropolis from Litany of the Dead Part 1.

[edit] Update 3.3: Academy Training

This update completely revamped the Action Point enhancement system. Also, in celebration of DDO's one-year anniversary, all chests were at +1 level from 2/28 to 3/4, and all xp awarded from 3/2 to 3/4 was +50%.

[edit] Update history

After the "Dragon's Vault" update was completed and servers were brought back online major problems arose including inability to cast spells, use ranged weapons, form groups, or enter dungeons. The game was shut down while the problems were resolved, and the game was back up and running in approximately five (5) hours. Character rollbacks also occurred due to exploits/coding errors which enabled players to make massive amounts of in-game money in the time servers were available. Primary among those was a "split-stack" issue which allowed players to sell a bugged item, now appearing as a stack of items in their inventory, for extremely inflated prices to in-game merchants while still keeping one copy from the stack to do with as they pleased.

On June 14 2006, Turbine released an update with a number of minor fixes to bugs and typos. Major changes were that the EXP was adjusted away from the standard D&D 3.5 model to one that helps new characters advance through the first few levels, an option to Solo most of the quests in the harbor, as well as moving some vendors to more central locations.

No major downtime was reported, and no new significant bugs have yet surfaced.

The "Twilight Forge" module re-introduced many of the previously fixed bugs, including the "split-stack" issue. Major downtimes were experienced with servers being restarted every 24 hours to reduce the lag. Turbine has addressed these issues but downtime still occurs on a regular basis.

"Litany of the Dead Part 1: The Necropolis", contains the first part of a long quest chain featuring quests for levels 5 and 6. This update added a good number of story elements to the game, and was more episodic in nature than the two modules preceding it. Specifically, Turbine stated that the entirety of the story chain won't be unleashed immediately; rather, the designers will develop it over time, so as to give it a good deal more scope.

[edit] Future updates

Turbine has officially announced that they will add a 4th Module, titled "Reaver's Bane", to the game in the near future. Major features being added with this Module will include a level-cap increase from 12 to 14, along with many new spells and abilities for characters of all levels,[2] as well as new outdoor combat areas and a new questing system known as "Wilderness Quests".[3]

In a recent public chat event, the developers stated that they are currently working on a new class (Monks) and a new playable race (Half-Orcs) for the game, both of which they hope to implement before the end of 2007. It was also revealed that the developers are planning to add the Druid class to the game, although it was not made clear exactly what stage of development the class is currently in. DDO's producer stated that, due to the difficulty involved with introducing such a class into the game, Druids would not be playable until "next year at the earliest".[4]

[edit] Beta testing

On August 1, 2005, Turbine sent out invitations to individuals interested in participating in the Public Alpha Test. On November 1, 2005, Turbine announced that the public Beta test was open [2]. On November 22, 2005 Turbine announced that each copy of the January 2006 issue of PC Gamer magazine would contain a "key" to gain access to the beta. Turbine, in association with Fileplanet and IGN, also completed 3 public stress tests of the game, with the most recent ending on February 12, 2006.

Testing for DDO ended on February 19, 2006. The game opened February 28, 2006, after a special head start event that started February 24, 2006 for those who pre-ordered.


[edit] Awards

  • Best Multiplayer Game, 2006 British Academy Video Games Awards[5]
  • Most Anticipated Game, 2005 MMORPG.COM Reader's Choice Awards[6]
  • Best Persistent World Game, IGN.com Best of 2006 Awards[7]
  • Nominee, Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year, 10th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (ongoing)[8]
  • Third Prize, Best Graphics, Les JOL d'Or 2006[9]
  • Third Prize, Public's Award, Les JOL d'Or 2006[10]

[edit] References

  1. ^ PnP differences. DDOwiki. Retrieved on 2007-02-24.
  2. ^ In Development: Module 4 spells levels 13-14. DDO.com (2007-02-14). Retrieved on 2007-02-24.
  3. ^ Solas' Dev Dairy: Wilderness Quests. DDO.com (2007-02-16). Retrieved on 2007-02-24.
  4. ^ Warcry Dev Chat Transcript. DDO.com (2007-02-22). Retrieved on 2007-02-24.
  5. ^ British Academy Video Games Awards, Latest Winners and Nominees. British Academy of Film and Television Arts (2006-10-05). Retrieved on 2007-02-24.
  6. ^ 2005 Reader's Choice Award Winners. MMORPG.com. Retrieved on 2007-02-24.
  7. ^ Best of 2006: PC, Best Persistent World Game. IGN. Retrieved on 2007-02-24.
  8. ^ 10th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. Retrieved on 2007-03-01.
  9. ^ Les JOL d'Or 2006. JeuxOnline. Retrieved on 2007-03-05.
  10. ^ Les JOL d'Or 2006. JeuxOnline. Retrieved on 2007-03-05.

[edit] External links

[edit] Media coverage

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